Impact of flooding and inundation on concrete pavement performance

Pavement infrastructures have become vulnerable to damage as they were not designed to withstand the aggressions of extreme weather events such as flooding, induced by climate change. In Ontario, flooding tops the list of climate change hazards having a consequential impact on pavement performance. Rigid pavements are recorded to provide resilience to flood hazard in literature but knowledge about its behavior and response to flood impact is currently scarce. The objective of this study is to investigate flood impact on concrete pavement performance examining case studies of Jointed Plain Concrete Pavement (JPCP) road classes in Ontario. The AASHTOWare Pavement ME was employed to simulate JPCP performance under climate-induced flood scenarios using a conservative Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) of 4.5W/m2. Typical municipal JPCP collector and arterial road classes were chosen and modelled. While percentage change in faulting performance was considered, overall flood damage was based on relative change in International Roughness Index (IRI) under flood conditions. Results indicated lower damage ratios and pavement life loss in arterial JPCP than collector JPCP. Generally, minor flood damages were observed across RCP 4.5 return periods and event cycles in the collector and arterial case studies when compared to previous flooded concrete pavement investigation.